Recent developments in the field of digital image processing have prompted adoption of techniques for the encoding and decoding, storing and telecommunications of data associated with natural color and grey-scale images. One major motivation for the development of rapid digital image processing was the adoption of standard protocol for the telecommunication of images at only 64 Kilobits per second on the Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN). Image data compression and decompression algorithms and standards were adapted by the Joint Photographic Expert Group (JPEG) that have been widely accepted in computer graphics applications as well as in image telecommunications service. In addition, graphic display techniques have been developed for producing virtual three-dimensional, computer-controlled displays and images. In these and other digital data processing applications, it has become increasingly important to rapidly process streams of correlated data for efficient storage and rapid transfer of graphic images within and between computer systems connected at different locations on a data bus or network. In graphical image processing, the applicable data may comprise the X-axis and Y-axis and Z-axis coordinate data of a selected point on a displayable image, or may comprise the red, green, blue (R,G,B) data which defines the color characteristics of a selected point on a displayable image. Thus, to process digital data associated with complex displayable images and images of natural coloration, a great volume of digital data in correlated sets representing coordinates (X,Y,Z) or characteristics (R,G,B) of individual displayable data points must be processed rapidly in order to store or transfer or reproduce the displayable image in reasonable time and with high resolution. Thus, for large-scale images of high color or positional resolution, 8-bit to 20-bit data for each of three color characteristics or each of three positional coordinates of each displayable picture element (or, pixel) in the image would have to be processed at very high speed in order to reproduce the displayable image without objectionable delays. This has been accomplished in conventional manner by operating multiple processors in parallel on the separate streams of correlated pixel data (that is, on the stream of all R data for data points, or on all G data, or on all B data, or the like), or by operating a single processor seriatum first on the R data, then on the G data, and then on the B data for a single pixel before proceeding to process the separate color characteristic data for the next pixel. These conventional schemes tend to be more expensive for multiple processors or undesirably slow for single processors.